Yikes. If that's the savings, how much is the cruise? Not only am I not going solo, I'm not going at all unless somebody treats me to it! Then again, some of the cruises are 23 days long so the price may not be outrageous for what you get.

But clearly the clientele is wealthy and retired. Either that or these cruisers saved vacation days and money to take the trip of a lifetime.

Paquet chose dinner at the home of a couple who wrote on the site that they loved to cook traditional Dutch food. She whipped out a credit card to cover the cost for a four- to five-course dinner and voila. She had a "reservation" for dinner. At someone's home.

One of the highlights of such a dinner, in my mind, is learning about a neighborhood in richer detail than you can from a guidebook. Paquet's host described a project to restrict prostitution in the famed red-light district and encourage upscale businesses to move in.

Over multiple glasses, the foursome also talked about the intricacies of Dutch politics. We get some of those stories here in Washington, D.C. I would have enjoyed hearing a Dutch point of view.

2010 FIFA World Cup. Soccer. Futbol. Spain. The Netherlands. The countries and the sport blend in a rosy, nostalgic blur in my mind because I've been to these places and met some of the people and it all has a deeper meaning than a game on TV. Ah, the richness of travel.

July 04, 2010

It was during a hitchhiking trip from the Netherlands to Norway that I learned that Denmark celebrates an American Fourth of July. Well, in its own Danish way.

And has done since 1912. In fact, it's the largest Fourth of July celebration outside of the United States.

The celebration is held in Rebild Bakker, a 190-acre national part that Danish-Americans donated to the Danish government. It's a place where Danish-Americans gather each year with family and friends to celebrate Independence Day and remember those who emigrated to America.

In Copenhagen, the "bycyklen" are free with a refunded coin deposit. The city so supports cyclists that a city agency maintains the huge fleet available to tourists. The bike Web site claims its city bikes are world famous. "When you tour the city you notice, that especially tourists love riding the city bikes."

One of the more unusual experiences I had, while in the Netherlands, was renting a bike as a means of transportation for a several-day excursion. My friend and I (this was not a solo trip) would throw our bikes onto trains and park them in front of hotels.

Because they were rentals, they weren't anything fancy but who needs a lot of gears in a flat country? One night we pedaled several miles from our hotel to a nice restaurant with white tablecloths. We dined on seafood and drank wine by the sea as the sun set. And felt like we earned our food because of the pre-meal exercise.

Minor problem with biking to dinner? Who wants to get back on that bike on a full stomach? Lesson learned. Not that I wouldn't do the activity again. But I would pencil into the plan some post-meal digesting time.

And get home before dark if the ride home is through the woods...as ours was. Especially if I were alone.

June 18, 2009

Travel writers have come up with a list of their favorite train rides and it has set my mind to wandering. And daydreaming. About past and future trips. The only train ride they list that I've actually been on is the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad that chugs through Colorado's two-million-acre San Juan National Forest.

As the coal-fired, steam-powered locomotive climbed its way to Silverton, I got to know my compatriots on a week-long Backroads bike trip through the Colorado Rockies. The views out the windows were spectacular - forest, mountains and steep drops to a river below.

When we arrived in Silverton, described on its Web site as, "a gritty little mining town with Victorian pretensions," it had clouded up and I was freezing. A quick visit to a souvenir shop - and there are many, trust me - for a Silverton sweatshirt solved that problem. (I loved that sweatshirt but lost it on some other adventure...)

That was a great bike trip and the train ride, though I remember it going on a tad long, was part of the allure.

The only other two train rides I'm a little familiar with are the Rocky Mountaineer, because I wrote about it in September after interviewing a big fan of the train. And the Flam Railway in Norway. Sadly, I never made it to Flam when I was in Norway years ago. I was hitchhiking with a friend on that trip. Our five-week journey started in the Netherlands and continued on to Bodo, a town above the Arctic Circle.

For five weeks, we went where drivers took us. We didn't have much in the way of plans other than to see the Midnight Sun. Mission accomplished.

But we did get driven East to West (or was it West to East?) between Oslo and Bergen, a bit south of Flam. I can attest it is one of the more stunning regions on earth. So I'm sure a train ride into those snow-capped mountains with their many waterfalls is just as spectacular.

I'd really love to get back there and see! "Ja, vi elsker dette landet." (The national anthem of Norway. It just happened to be a clue in Sunday's NY Times crossword puzzle.)

September 25, 2008

On the Web site "Travelers Notebook," Tim Patterson writes about "10 Travel Risks Worth Taking." Several of them don't interest me. (Decline anti-malaria medication. Brush your teeth with the tap water.) But one I particularly subscribe to: Trust in the kindness of strangers.

Patterson says that almost all the people he meets in his travels are "good-hearted, hospitable and sincere." I have found the same to be true. He says it's "tragic" when travelers' paranoia interferes with their chance to make connections with the locals.

People who shy away from strangers tend to be the ones who hang around in tourist zones, he adds. And those are home to the highest proportion of "scam artists, petty thieves and dodgy characters who prey on naive foreigners."

He makes a good point. I not only have trusted strangers in foreign lands, but often counted on them. For instance, as I've said before, I stayed in a Dutch hotel owner's home when he messed up my reservation and he couldn't find me another room in the city.

I let a French Moroccan airport worker drive me from the Paris airport to a hotel he knew of on the outskirts of the city. I was young. He got interested. I got nervous. But thankfully, he took "no" for an answer.

Whew. Close call. But then again, I never really felt in danger. Maybe because I was sure I could deck him if I had to! He was far from football player sized...

April 10, 2008

It seems crazy but you can become friends "for life" with people you spend a week with on vacation. Why this happens, I don't know.

I'm reminded of it because on Sunday, I had dinner with Barry and Viv from Tampa. We met years ago on a skating vacation. Shortly after that trip, I had business in Tampa and stayed at their house for two days. Viv and I lounged in the backyard pool and talked plants and gardening and other important topics.

When they visited Washington the next year, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant in Adams Morgan and pushed spongy bread around a huge platter of delectable spreads. Barry and I skated in Rock Creek Park.

Then we lost touch for several years. Out of the blue I get an email from Viv a couple of weeks ago: "We're coming to Washington. Are you around?"

I was.

We arranged to meet at La Tasca on 7th Street. On the phone, Viv asked if I'd recognize her and Barry. What a silly question. We spotted each other on the street and hugged hello. Inside we shared tapas and caught each other up on our lives.